


The Colour Grey

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adopted Hawke, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Colors, Custom Hawke, Dark Past, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fear, Flashbacks, M/M, Naked Cuddling, Protective Iron Bull, Qunari, Qunari Hawke - Freeform, Romance, Symbolism, Temple of Sacred Ashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 00:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12642453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: All of the characters featured here have been through torment that has coloured their world into shades of grey - but they begin to rethink the meaning behind this colour when each of them falls in love with a grey-skinned Qunari.





	The Colour Grey

Grey is the colour of the haze before his eyes when he tries to look back and understand what he used to be - who he used to be - before the raw, shattering pain of lyrium being wrought into his skin cut away his past self, leaving him only with the heat of his anger, the pull of the endless chase, hunting for the hunter, and the sudden jolts in his chest when he, say, looks someone in the eyes for too long, and the lessons instilled into him by slavers resurface again. Grey is blank, grey is oppressive, grey is a wall that locks him in and does not let him be anything else except what he is now. Completely alone.

 

Grey is the colour of ash, covering the ground in a thick, soft carpet and still falling from the sky in huge flakes that rest on the outstretched arms, half-melted and charred, and on the twisted faces, almost worn down to leering skulls, still screaming, always screaming, even though she cannot hear them... But that would be the ash carpet muffling everything, wouldn't it? Grey is the colour that buried everyone in attendance at the Conclave: the Most Holy, the Clerics, the mages and templars working together to try and stop this cursed war... Regalyan... All the people that she has failed to protect. They are lost among the grey now, waves and waves of cold, suffocating grey... The colour that makes her stomach clench with a sickly sensation of helplessness.

 

Grey is the colour of the storm clouds, hanging low over the upturned, mangled carriage, a darkened backdrop for the random, jumbled images that his eyes register dully, with a sense of numb detachment as if he were looking at one of those stupid fancy Orlesian paintings. A wheel, half-sunken into the mud, spinning slower and slower till it comes to a halt like a dead man's heart; an axe sticking out of a broken-off gilded door, the first drop of rain streaking down it, a slow, steely tear, and then mixing in with a splatter of fresh blood; a child's hand peeking out of the debris, stiffened fingers half-clasped around a white porcelain arm that is missing a doll. The clouds are present in each of these chilling pictures; the clouds see everything; and they are still there when he begins to run, always trailing after him, shadowing him, impossible to get rid of, even when the sky clears up. Grey is the colour that tainted that day - and even when he slips into a different sort of grey, wearing it like a disguise, a mask to hide the face of a monster, he still remembers those storm clouds.

 

Grey is the colour of dim light streaming into a dusty room, motes circling in pale beams; grey is the colour of the very air that surrounds him, stale and stagnant, turning to poison. He has been breathing this air all his life, and has always felt his very soul wilt at its touch - and yet this sensation as never been as poignant as now, at this moment, when he has finally spoken out, finally declared his wish to breathe freely... At the moment when his father stands with his back to him, his silhouette also grey, albeit darker, as if carved out of solid, impenetrable stone. And grey - so it seems to him - is the colour of his father's voice as well, hardened and quiet, creeping into his head and stifling him like the densest of leaden smoke. 'You are no son of mine'.

 

Grey is the colour that he has been seeing for so very long in his child's face, and yet still breaks his heart, again and again, into jagged shards, which cut him deeper and deeper the longer he takes in these gaunt, wraith-like features, which used to look so different... Which should look different! Grey is the colour of Blighted flesh, drained of all vitality, pulsing with an unnatural fever that refuses to go away, no matter how hard he works to ease it, no matter to what depths of desperation he flings himself, ready to do anything, everything, just to make this damnable colour of disease fade away, release its hold over his son, his precious boy, whose first steps he still remembers as if it were yesterday. He can't be taken from him, not so soon, not like this, not by this Blighted grey!..

 

Grey is the colour of desolation and loneliness, of fear and shame; the colour of death. And yet, grey is also the colour of warm, living Qunari skin.

 

Grey hands, large and coarse, closing in round Fenris' unsure, tensened fingers, while Champion Ursa - an adopted daughter of the human Hawkes, a misfit looking for a purpose, just like him - leans in close, bumping her forehead against his, and whispers that he will never have to be alone again. 

 

Grey chest, bared and vulnerable for one of the few times in the life of the wary, slow to trust apostate mercenary Maaras Adaar, rising and falling steadily under Cassandra's hands, while she looks into his eyes and realizes, a warm light enveloping her from within, that whatever she does, whatever dangers she faces, she can always look back, and he will be there, right behind her, and together, they will protect the people of Thedas without fail.

 

Grey face, still a little haggard after all the years Saarath Adaar spent chained and subdued by her own kin for having magic - but soft and warm as Blackwall cups his hand round it and traces her features (lying down on top of her, because otherwise he'd never reach up), breathless with awe, still unable to believe that this gentle, pure woman, who heals wounds and dispels darkness and comforts crying children, has actually accepted him for what he is, and also wondering if perhaps... If perhaps, seeing that she has forgiven him and decided to redeem him, there is something in him worth redeeming?

 

Grey arms, wrapped around Dorian in the small hours of the morning - delightfully muscular and also reassuringly protective, which is rather more important to him right now, when both he and Bull have been sated, and the flame of desire and the white flashes of peaking pleasure have given way to a sort of serene glow that he never thought he would bask in. The glow that comes from the knowledge that he is being cherished and shielded from the storm of the world, that the air around him is clear and fresh, and that he can be himself without fearing that existing like this might be selfish and wrong.

 

Grey shoulder, which so many frightened Imekari would cry on when Issala Adaar was still a Tamassran under the Qun, now bared carelessly - her loose casual tunic keeps sliding off - and serving as a head rest for Alexius, as both of them are nestling together on her Avvar bed, each working on some notes for the Inquisition, half-lulled by the muffled clamour of swords carried in from the courtyard (Felix is getting better at his combat training as a recent Grey Warden recruit), their tangled shared history sorted through and understood and settled into what Varric calls the 'enemies to friends to lovers route', where there will be no more pain and despair and regret.

 

And it is during little moments like this - two people breaking away from the grey shadows and enjoying each other's company - that grey becomes the colour of reassurance, and contentment, and love.

 

 


End file.
